THE ICEFJORD CENTRE

Page by page guide

– the Book Creator student’s book “The Light Returns”

The students meet the Icefjord Centre in two pictures, showing summer and winter respectively.

In class you can talk about:

• What the Icefjord Centre is.
• What the surroundings around the centre look like.
• The difference between summer and winter.
• How summer and winter differ where you live.

The students see a map of Greenland. There is a marker that shows where Ilulissat is situated.

In class you can discuss:

• What you see on the map.
• How many people live in Ilulissat.
• What else do you know about Greenland and Ilulissat?
• Do you know the names of other places on the map?

The students see a map of Ilulissat. There is a marker that shows where Holms Bakke is situated. The red line shows a route from the Icefjord Centre to Holms Bakke.

In class you can talk about:

• How far is the distance from Holms Bakke to the Icefjord Centre?
• Why do you go up on a hill in order to see the return of the Sun?
• Please give the students the experience of standing on the roof of the Icefjord Centre looking down on Holms Bakke (you could use the pictures on pages 4-7)

The students see part of a world map.

The task now is to move the red marker down into the map in order to show where each student lives.

The marker is found in the white box and can be drawn into the map.

In class you can talk about:

• Where is your town or settlement situated?
• How many people live in the town or settlement where you live?
• Do you know the name of other places on the map?

Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast The Light Returns.

They start the podcast by clicking on the icon in the middle of page 14.

It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups.

Let the students spend a few minutes discussing what they have heard in the podcast

with the student sitting next to them. On page 15 the students are to make small sound recordings where they tell about the podcast. The pictures on the page will support their memory of what they have heard.

Insertion of sound see instruction 1 here

Review in class

It is recommended to have a joint discussion in class when the work with pages 14-15 is done.

We suggest that you support the discussion by writing and maybe illustrating concepts and keywords on the board.

In class you could talk about:

• What surprised the students when listening to the podcast.
• Concepts and keywords that the students encountered in the podcast.

In the text below you can find inspiration for the class discussion.

• January – 13 January

It is the day where the light returns to Ilulissat. It is the most important day of the year. Lisa tells us that they all look forward to enjoying nature and to sailing. In the schools the children create suns and display them in the windows. From 29 November till 13 January there is no sun. Everyone, who is able to and wants to, goes to welcome the Sun on Seqinniarfik/Holms Bakke. Afterwards they celebrate with singing, eating cake and drinking coffee. 13 January is a very important day for the Greenlanders in Ilulissat.

Why is 13 January important to the Greenlanders in Ilulissat?

What day/which days are important to you?

• Christmas and Easter – two holidays from Christianity that Lisa mentions.

Even though 13 January is important to the Greenlanders in Ilulissat, the Christian holidays are also of great importance to them.

Are there other holidays that you know of?

Do you know anything about holidays from other religions than Christianity?

• Traditions – everyone, who is able to and wants to, goes to Seqinniarfik/Holms Bakke. To sing a welcome to the Sun.

13 January is quite a special and significant day for the Greenlanders in Ilulissat, because they have a tradition where they welcome the Sun. Afterwards they celebrate with singing, eating cake and drinking coffee. The song they sing is called ”Seqernup qungululluni nunarput nuilaaraa” / ”When the Sun with a smile looks a bit over our country”. They can now look forward to light and warm days.

What is a tradition and which other traditions do you know?

Do you know about other traditions, where phenomena of nature are celebrated?

Now the students will listen to the song that is sung at Holms Bakke. Click on the sun to play the song. The text is written in Greenlandic and in an English translation. The students can try singing along in Greenlandic while they listen to the song. Subsequently they must discuss the importance of the light to the Greenlanders in Ilulissat using the text of the song and what they have heard about in the podcast. 

These are the last two concepts that relate to the podcast.

• The midnight sun – a phenomenon of nature you can find north of the northern polar circle, where the Sun does not set for several weeks in a row. Lisa tells us that there are no set hours to relate to; you eat when you are hungry and go to bed when you are tired. You live the way that Nature dictates.

What would you do, if you were not to relate to certain set hours in your daily life?

How does it fit with the daily life you live at present?

• The Sun – the star in our solar system. Without it, life on Earth, as we know it, would not be able to exist. The students in Ilulissat create suns of paper and display them in the classroom to celebrate the return of the Sun 13 January.

Do you know any planets in our solar system? Name them.

What would the Earth look like if the Sun did not exist?

Could we exist without the Sun?

Now the students will search for pictures in Book Creator. On page 18 they are to find pictures of the midnight sun and insert them. On page 19 they are to find pictures of the solar system and insert them.

Insertion of pictures see instruction 2 here

On pages 20 and 21 the students can write short sentences or small stories using the keywords that you have talked about. They can write them, record them as a sound recording or draw a drawing and insert the picture. Their products will be part of the further work with the podcast.

Insertion of sound, pictures & text see instructions 1, 2 & 3 here

Now the students will search for knowledge. On pages 22-23 there is a link to this homepage from Visit Greenland and a picture of the midnight sun in Ilulissat. They will be using the homepage to find the answers to the four questions on pages 24 and 25. Their answers to the questions they insert in the (speech) balloons as small sound recordings.

Here are some suggestions to other questions you can work with:

• Are there other countries where they also welcome the return of the Sun?
• What is the difference between the northern and the southern polar circle?

Insertion of sound see instruction 1 here

Use the picture in the Book Creator book to talk about the Earth and the Sun.

Here are some suggestions to what you can talk about in class:

• How does the Earth orbit around the Sun? Notice the arrow around the Earth that shows the direction.
• Why do you say that “the Sun rises” when it actually is the Earth that rotates around its own axis and orbits around the Sun?
• What influence does the inclination of the Earth have on the dark period of the year and the midnight sun? Notice the axis that goes through the Earth.
• What are northern lights?
• Does this light phenomenon only occur north of the Arctic Circle?

Now the students have worked with the return of the light, northern lights and the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

To conclude their work with these topics, the students are to work with their obtained knowledge and make a product using this knowledge. The students can choose between three different types of products.

• Interview about the invention of a new tradition to celebrate the light.
  • Here the students are to imagine that they have invented a new tradition that celebrates the return of the light.
  • They have to imagine that they are being interviewed by the news where they tell about their new tradition that celebrates the return of the light.
  • They get interviewed by the news and tell about their new tradition.

• A podcast that explains the return of the Sun on the horizon in Ilulissat.
  • Here the students are to explain the return of the Sun and why it happens on a certain day. They can make use of knowledge from the book.
  • They decide themselves whether their podcast has a scientific angle or whether it tells about what it feels like to live in a country where the Sun is gone for several months.

• Production of their own welcoming song to the Sun.
  • Here the students make their own welcoming song to the Sun. They decide themselves whether they will make use of a known tune or whether they want to make a tune of their own.

Pages 28-29 can be adjusted so they fit with the students’ choice of product. They can also add more pages if necessary.

Their product must be recorded as a sound recording and inserted in the Book Creator book. They can support the sound recording with drawings, pictures etc.

Organise the students in pairs, in groups or singly. Depending on what suits each student best and the competences to be developed.

Insertion of sound and pictures see instructions 1 & 2 here

To conclude the whole process, the students must present their work to the rest of the class. The focus here is the students’ communicative skills and competences.

The students present their products to the class. 

Take care that the feedback consists of positive criticism. The students must be supported in judging: what is good – what could be better. Gather more inspiration here.

This is not necessarily because the students should make new picture stories, but more to let the students discover and work with this positive criticism.

If you want to work with some of the other podcasts from the Icefjord Centre, it would be a good idea to save the students’ Book Creator books so that the work they have done in it can be used again.

If you wish to let the students make use of the feedback they have received from the class, you can set time off for them to continue their work with their products. So that they can use the feedback they have received from each other to change things in their product.

The podcast The Light Returns has been created by the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat.

Teaching material for the podcast The Light Returns has been developed by Lotte Brinkmann from Anholt Læringsværksted, with feedback from Leg med It.

The student’s book in Book Creator has been developed as part of the project Nutaaliorta from Kivitsisa.

The template was designed by Rikke Falkenberg Kofoed and Daniella Maria Manuel, Leg med It.

The teaching material The Light Returns is published under a Creative Commons crediting licence CC:BY.

The texts, assignments and pictures can be shared, reproduced and adapted, with the proviso that “The Light Returns” by The Icefjord Centre Ilulissat is credited as the source.